Arkansas handles full Thursday practice

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Splitting time between the Willard and Pat Walker Pavilion and the practice fields just south of Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium, Arkansas Razorback football practiced for 90 minutes in full pads on Thursday.

Normally a lighter day of practice in preparation for a Saturday game, Arkansas football went through full drills on Thursday because of Saturday’s postponement.

"We are switching our focus immediately to Alabama," head coach Bobby Petrino said. "Our coaches have done a great job getting the scouting reports ready. We started game planning today and got a good 90-minute practice in. Tomorrow we will bring the players in for meeting in the afternoon. We want them to get their legs back Friday and Saturday. Then they will come in for meetings and a short practice Sunday night."

"We are disappointed we aren’t playing Texas this weekend," Petrino said. "We put two hard practices in and two good days of preparation in to that game. We understand the decision and it was probably the right one to make. We have to move on and get ready to open up SEC play."

Mother Nature and Hurricane Ike will provide some extra practice and preparation time for the Razorbacks to prepare for the first Southeastern Conference opponent, Alabama on Sept. 20, in Fayetteville.

"Basically, we lost our bye week," Petrino said. "We tried to do the best we could last night and today getting ready for Alabama. It’ll balance out because we have a couple of days to get fresh and we’ll have a few extra days of preparation for the Alabama game."

"We were hoping we could play," Petrino said. "Then have the bye week when it was scheduled. But you have to adjust, move forward and prepare for the next game. We’ll get an extra couple of days to prepare and hopefully that will show up in the game."

Petrino has been impressed with the effort he has seen from his players. He expects it to continue with a slight rest only helping to master the physical demands of preparing for the next game.

"Their attitudes have been great the last few days in practice," Petrino said. "They’ve been working hard and developing great habits. We are starting to come together as a team in that respect. We’ll put it on hold. We need to make sure our bodies are fresh and ready to go for Alabama week. We’ll come back Sunday and get back to work."